A total of 104 million (m) books, with a sales value of $1,261 m, were sold by book publishers or businesses with major book publishing activity in 2000-01 according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today. This represented a decrease of 19% in the number of books sold from 1999-2000 (129 m books) to 2000-01.

The 228 businesses involved in book publishing sold $1,250 m of printed books covering education ($487 m), nonfiction ($432 m), fiction ($180 m) and children's books ($151 m). A further $10 m of electronic and audio books were also sold.

The vast majority of books were sold to the domestic market (87% or $1,098 m), while the remainder (13% or $163 m) were exported overseas, primarily to the United States of America ($55 m), New Zealand ($27 m) and the United Kingdom ($23 m).

The 20 largest book publishers in terms of income earned an average of $52 m while the remaining book publishers earned an average of $2 m. Overall the 228 businesses involved in book publishing earned an average of $6 m each.

Income from book sales, combined with a further $100 m from other activities such as sales of other goods, services and book royalties, brought total income of the businesses to $1,361 m. The 20 largest book publishers (9% of businesses) sold 72% of books and earned 76% ($1,030 m) of the total income.

Total expenses for the 228 businesses were $1,322 m. The largest cost was for printing ($247 m or 19% of total expenses) which was evenly distributed between printing in Australia and overseas ($123 m each). This was followed by expenditure on wages and salaries ($224 m). They also spent $211 m on imported books. The largest 20 book publishers incurred 74% ($982 m) of the total expenses.

While overall income of businesses involved in book publishing was similar to 1999-2000, there was a fall in operating profit from $106 m in 1999-2000 to $63 m in 2000-01, which is a decrease in profit margin from 7.8% to 4.6%.

Further details are available in Book Publishers, Australia, 2000-01 (cat. no. 1363.0).

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